After Hello (You Had Me at Hello, #1.5)

by Mhairi McFarlane

Do you think we’ve changed much since we were twenty-one?’ I say, in the post-coital peacefulness.

‘It’s perfect because it’s a fantasy and it’s a

fantasy because it’s perfect.’ ‘I had

‘Well I’d rather have things go wrong with you than right with anyone else,’ Ben says. ‘I think that’s pretty romantic, Chicken Little.’

I wonder if this wedding has made her, to use a technical

journalistic term, nuttier than squirrel shit.

Part of being grown up is realising that “I don’t want to” is a good enough reason.’

And in a company headshot too, where let’s face it, most of us look like a breakout from the Prison of Azkaban.

It’s very powerful to know you can cope. You can do anything after that.’

Not because they got the formula magically exactly right at the outset but because they clung on when they had cause to jump off.’

I nod.

It’s like we’re right back in that halls of residence queue, that incredible once-in-a-lifetime moment when we met as strangers who somehow knew each other already.

‘The story of my life is that there is only one you for me,’ he says. ‘How is worrying about Esther what you “deserve”? Liv and I didn’t split up because of you, you know that.’ ‘I was the best friend who became the girlfriend. It’s like what they say about the Other Woman who becomes the wife, creating a vacancy. I made a vacancy.’ ‘But you haven’t. You’re still my best friend,’ Ben says.

You know, now our generation doesn’t have to get married – and thank goodness for that – it’s easy to think it’s a superfluous nonsense, and sometimes weddings are. But it’s also easy to forget how absolutely fantastic they can be. This isn’t just one of the best days of Ivor and Mindy’s lives, it’s one of the best days of all of our lives.